


The Hitchhiker's Guide to Unresolved Homoeroticism

by tanzertime



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2019-11-29 07:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18219935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanzertime/pseuds/tanzertime
Summary: Some little drabbles about two dudes who wanna kiss but don’t know it.Basically just shorts of Ford and Arthur and their weird but v delightful relationship. No greater plot here, and honestly, the wildest its gonna get in here is some snugglin. It be like that. EnjoyAlso — if you have requests or suggestions I am open! If I like the idea I’ll do something with it but im a finicky, busy bitch so pls dont be upset if I don’t do yours





	1. Not with a bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur chat about planets, and how sometimes they blow up.

Arthur Dent sat back and tried to remember something his high school english teacher had said about a poem once. 

Ah, right —

This is how the world ends, this is how the world ends, this is how the world ends; not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

He knew that neither his english teacher or Elliot himself had really meant to predict anything about today. That poem would have some very interesting, and far more memorable verses if it had. 

No, he remembered what his English teacher had said:

“Life often does not end with a valiant battle, it is far more likely to simply slip away when we least expect it.” Mr. Brown had been a bit of a pretentious shithead like that.

He huddled near a window, a thick towel wrapped around his shoulders. 

Well, that was Earth, then. 

Not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

His temple rested on the cool glass and he pulled the towel tighter. 

They couldn’t have even fought it. 

He worried his nail with his teeth, watching planets zip by, and thought about Egypt. All of that mess, with the pharaohs and such — then they went and made Greece, and Rome, and Britain, and all sorts of wonderful places…

He curled the towel even tighter. 

For it to go up in a puff of smoke just a blink of the eye later. 

His eyes slipped shut, and he sighed, heavily. His mind was not built to mourn an entire planet. His mind was not built to mourn the loss of his entire family, his friends, all of those things he’d grown so attached to on Earth. So it looped back around to blank. 

_ You’ve made me the happiest door on this ship, sir! _

Arthur tightened the blanket again. He felt like he was trying to add another layer of skin. His eyes darted to the intruder, who stopped and blinked at him calmly. 

Arthur didn’t often notice how little his friend blinked, but now, it was the most normal thing in the room. 

Ford waltzed over and settled into the little nook Arthur had shoved himself in. “Hey.”

Arthur didn’t respond. He pulled the blanket so it covered his mouth, drawing further into the fluffy cocoon. 

“Prolly a bit down, then,” Ford said, picking the mud out of his shoes. “S’a rough Thursday, that’s for sure.”

“Not now,” Arthur managed. His eyes slipped shut again. He felt very tired. 

“... Arthur, can I ask a favor?”

Arthur shifted, not opening his eyes. “Not now.”

“Come on,” he said, and Arthur felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. “S’an easy one. All you have to do is look outside and listen to me for a bit.”

“Ford —“

“Trust me,” Ford replied. “Just look out the window.”

Arthur did. 

Over the course of their little conversation, the ship had finally stopped darting through realms of reality to happily clip along for a moment. As such, when Arthur looked out the window, he saw the stars. 

They were bigger than before. Of course, Arthur knew this was more of a distance thing. He had personally never been this close to a star. Nobody on earth had. 

“Now,” Ford continued, “what do you know about constellations and what-not?”

“Not much,” Arthur sighed. “What’s this got to do with anything, Ford?”

“Trust me. Find… we’ll start easy. Find Orion.”

Arthur let his eyes drift back to the window. He searched, but it was fruitless, and after a moment he sat back with a sigh. “I can’t find it, Ford. Will you please just —“

“Right there,” the man said, pointing to a random jumble of stars. “Right there, that’s Orion.”

“Wh — Ford, it absolutely isn’t.”

Ford arched an eyebrow, giving him that crazy smile. “It is, Arthur. The angle’s just throwing you off. I know, because  _ that, _ ” he said, jabbing the window where a red star floated, “is my home planet.”

Arthur squinted. “Is … that where we’re headed, or  …?”

“It’d be an awful place to visit,” Ford scoffed. “The thing was blown to smithereens. Destroyed. Absolutely demolished.”

Arthur was taken aback. “I — I’m sorry, then, Ford —“

Ford kept looking out the window, still smiling. “My father’s planet, anyhow. He was the only one who escaped. He died, later, because I couldn’t pronounce the name he gave me. So that was a wrap on that whole planet and everyone who had ever lived on it,” he mused. He took a deep breath, watching the red star slowly pan past the window. “I can’t tell you how many planets have shared the same fate. Destroyed because they were in the way of some bigger thing -- Vogons, suns, improbable divits in space-time, the like. So it’s important to have somewhere else to turn. What I’m getting at, Arthur, is that residents of the universe have spent nearly all their time finding new ways to get closer to each other,” Ford continued. “Alcohol, spaceships, whatnot.” He turned towards the other man and gave him a closed-mouthed smile. For the first time he could remember, he realized that Ford looked very, very tired. “Because it’s a terrible thing to be alone.”

Arthur watched as the alien lifted his arm, inviting him in. 

“And, just so you know, you aren’t.” 

After a moment, Arthur slotted against his side. 

Betelgeuse bobbed from view. 

They carried on. 


	2. The Most Important Thing in the Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur get some coffee.

One time, in a coffee shop off main, Arthur Dent had nonchalantly stirred the coffee he insisted was overpriced. He sipped it, and it tasted good, of course, but better than any other coffee he could make at home? ...Well, probably. He wasn’t very good at this kind of thing. Maybe he’d take a few tries. But he could get there. He was going to say that, he decided. 

“This coffee is so overpriced, you know. I could probably make it at home, if I took a few shots at it. It can’t be more then sugar and …” he trailed off, noticing the glazed look in his friend’s eyes. “You alright?”

“Arthur, what do people do for fun around here?”

Arthur blinked. He was English, it had never occurred to him that some people go out into the world seeking something other than mundanity. 

“Erm…” he worried his lip, trying to find something even a little fun. “Well, I mean … it’s about ten in the morning, now. Might be a film playing.”

“A film, then?” Ford leaned on the heel of his hand, eyes still strangely glazed over. “Watching other folks run about for a bit? I’d say I can do just about anything they’ve done on film. I’d even wager it’s more exciting to do it yourself.”

“Well, hell, Ford,” Arthur grumbled. “I don’t know what you’re angling for, then.”

“Not angling for anything,” he explained, taking a sip of his coffee. “Just want to know. It doesn’t seem like much.”

“Well… then go somewhere else,” Arthur defended weakly. 

“We’ve tried, haven’t we?” Ford chattered, staring up at the clouds. “Haven’t made it much of anywhere yet. Made it to the moon once, neat enough. Any reason we didn’t stay?”

“Ford, there are quite fewer things to do on the moon then there are here.”

Ford arched a violently thin eyebrow at him. “Have you been?”

“...what kind of… of course I haven’t been, Ford, what are you —“

“Then I don’t think you quite get a say, huh?”

Arthur blinked at that. 

“Might be loads of fun stuff up there.”

Arthur stared. 

“Low-gravity tetherball. Alien women with fourteen tits and legs that really do go for miles,” Ford unhelpfully elaborated, pouring something from his flask into his untouched coffee. 

“Oh, thank god,” Arthur sighed. “You’re just day drinking again.”

Ford smiled at him around the lip of his cup. A big smile, his usual smile, the one that drew your eye to the canine teeth. “Give it a try sometime,” Ford said simply. “Might like it.”

“I think I’ll hold off,” Arthur muttered disapprovingly. 

“Suit yourself.”

“Well, Ford, I’ll be quite honest with you,” Arthur replied testily. “This  _ was  _ my idea of a fun day.”

Ford gave him a look. “...what was?”

“This!” Arthur huffed. “Going about town with you! Coffee, bit of shopping, catch a movie — just a nice day out, is all!”

Ford looked at him for a long moment. He blinked. It was very slow, very methodical, like he had to remember how. 

“That’s it, then.”

Arthur was confused. “That’s what?”

“That’s it,” Ford repeated unhelpfully, screwing the lid on his flask and tucking it away. “It’s all just excuses to be around people. My God. That’s all it is!”

“Alright,” Arthur grumbled, slamming his money on the table. “I’ll walk you home. I know when I’m not —“

“Arthur Dent,” Ford said, grabbing the other man’s hand as he rose to leave, “it is the most important thing in the universe that we go shopping today.”

“What are — what’s in that flask, Ford?” Arthur asked, eyebrows knitting together. 

“Not nearly enough to cloud me up. It’s clear as day, then. It’s clear as day! It’s all just reasons to hang around each other!”

Arthur considered phoning a mental hospital. Ford laced their arms together and dragged him off, chattering the whole way. 

“Tell me about anything, Arthur Dent,” he chirped. “Your job, the weather, whatever mundane little damn thing comes to mind. Tell me everything.”


	3. Space'll do that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur get kicked out of a bar.

“So, what was your plan, anyways?”

Ford turned towards Arthur. Any other man would have blinked in surprise. He, of course, did not, but one got the impression anyways. 

“My plan?” He asked, leaning back in his chair. “For what?”

“Well, let’s say we were down at the pub one night. And suddenly, some mechanical whatsit starts buzzing in your pocket. There’s a spaceship nearby, due to beam you up whenever you’d like. What then?”

Ford Prefect regarded Arthur as is he’d asked him to gnaw his own arms off and use them as stilts. 

“I’d leave, Arthur,” he said in the most obvious tone in the world. “What else would I possibly do?”

Arthur pursed his lips at that. Oh, now that was a look Ford didn’t like. That meant Arthur was measuring his words. That meant he might actually have something important to say. 

“Well,” the other man began, sitting back and crossing his legs, “saying goodbye is out of the question, then.”

“Oh, Arthur,” Ford laughed. He’d been worried it was something important. “I’d have sent you a postcard! Said I got my break, and was all moved in to LA. Then you’d see a man a bit like me in a porno sometime and pity me for a bit before you got bored and found a new video.”

“Wh— you really think that?”

“I don’t think that at all!”

“Then why did you —“

“I know it,” Ford finished, settling back on the stool and taking a sip of his drink to punctuate the point. 

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, as he was wont to do when Ford said stupid things like they made a lot of sense. “Ford, listen. You really think I’d forget about you that easily?”

Ford continued to sip his drink. The straw was long, and very eccentrically shaped, and he thought it was the perfect punctuation to his point. 

“Well… I wouldn’t,” Arthur said feebly after a moment of silence. “I’d have missed you terribly.”

Ford stopped sipping his drink. 

“You made things interesting, you know? You were my fun friend,” Arthur muttered, looking away from the alien. His fingers traced up and down the grooves of the simulated pint glass. “Made things interesting. Made the night fun. I’d plenty of friends, but I’d always think, ‘oughta call Ford. See if Ford’s free. S’hardly a night without him.’” He set the pint on the bar, and it ceased to exist. “I’d have missed you terribly.”

Ford stared into his drink as he spun it. He watched the ice cubes tumble over each other. “Okay, well, now I feel like a bit of an asshole, if I’m being completely honest.”

Arthur sighed. “I’m glad I was here to witness it.”

“I’d have missed you too, for the record!”

“Very convincing.”

“Wh -- Like I didn’t grab you on the way out!” He meagerly defended. “If I wanted to go all Noah on humanity, I’d have at least grabbed someone more attractive!”

Arthur snapped towards him. “What? Why on Earth --”

“For Trillian, you know, up to Trillian’s standards.”

“Right.”

“Arthur, you know what I meant.”

“I do, unfortunately.”

“I find you plenty attractive.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean that!”

“I’m sure you do,” he muttered, reaching over the table and making his drink reappear.

_ “Arthur,”  _ he groaned, tipping his head back. “Stop it. I’m not drunk enough right now. You’re making me face the consequences of the things I say and I hate it.”

Arthur just raised his eyebrows as he took a drink, busy facing away from Ford. “Mm-Hm.”

“You’re being passive-aggressive.”

“You just said you’d have left me behind without a goodbye then implied that I’m ugly,” Arthur said into his glass, already preparing to drain the rest of the pint as it became clear that he’d need it. “Which is aggressive, if you ask me. You didn’t even bother being passive about it.”

“You know what I meant!”

“I do, that’s why I’m -- just drop it, alright?”

“What, no, I won’t drop it! Look, alright, first things first, I think you’re plenty attractive.”

“Mm-hm.”

“You’ve got a great ass, for one.”

Arthur spit his drink back into his pint. “Ford!”

“What?”

“You don’t --”

“Excuse me, sirs,” the bartender interrupted. “I’m going to have to ask you to either resolve this conflict or escalate it to a fistfight for the amusement of your fellow patrons.”

“It’s not -- It’s not a  _ conflict,”  _  Ford lied, badly. “Just give us ten minutes, alright, we’ll --”

“How drunk are you, Ford?” Arthur snapped.

“I’m not! That’s the problem!”

“Sirs --”

“Fuck off!” They both snapped at the bartender. 

About a minute later, they both were sitting outside of the bar, trying to signal for Zaphod. 

“He’s not coming,” Arthur said as their signal was denied for the upteenth time. “He put us up here so he could go on some forray with Trillian. There’s no way he’s going to turn around from  _ that. _ ”

“Can you just shut up for a  _ second, _ ” Ford hissed, adjusting a few knobs and sending the signal again. The reader flashed red again and he swore, stuffing the signaler back into his bag. “Just give him a minute.”

Arthur raised his eyebrows and twitched his lip in a face universally recognized as signaling ‘sure thing, buddy.’

“Can’t believe you got us thrown out.”

“I got us thrown out?”

“You were the one yelling!”

“You’re the one yelling!”

“Alright, alright --” Ford said, raising his hand for silence. “Let’s just talk this out like adults.”

“Great. That’s absolutely worked so far.”

Ford ignored that. “First off, just because I would’ve left without a goodbye does not mean I wouldn’t have missed you.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It just means I wouldn’t have missed your  _ planet,”  _ he continued, which was a very bad idea. “Because I found it very boring.”

Arthur sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Just stop.”

“Again, not you! Just your entire planet, especially England, but I didn’t have the money to live anywhere nicer, so --”

“Okay, Ford,” Arthur sighed, “you’re thick, but you’re not this bloody thick, you know that isn’t the right thing to say.”

“I’m just telling the truth!” he defended. He raised his right hand. “Hand-to-God-or-what’s-left-of-him truth. Trust me. Secondly, I do find you attractive, and my stance on your ass still stands. I only meant that, if I was trying to save  _ humanity,  _ I’d have probably grabbed, oh, I don’t know,  _ two people _ , maybe?”

“Then say that!”

“I was trying to lighten the mood! Get some banter going!”

Arthur huffed. Ford continued. 

“Like I was saying. Two people. Probably two married people, actually. But I chose to save you, because you’re my dear friend, and I like you a lot, and I wanted to keep you around and alive. … So there,” he finished, a bit impotently. “Now stop being mad at me. You’re not the fun kind of mad, and, quite frankly, I hate it.”

Arthur was silent for a long moment.

“...You really think my butt’s nice?” he finally asked.

Ford nodded. “You didn’t know?”

“Never looked at it, really.” He twisted around a bit. “Girls don’t tend to bring it up.”

“Girls  _ love  _ a good ass,” Ford assured. “I’m pretty sure that’s why Trillian even bothers with Zaphod. Unless she’s exclusively into former cast members of Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Arthur laughed. Ford breathed a sigh of relief.

“So you’re done being upset with me?” Ford asked, hopeful.

“I live in a perpetual state of being upset with you,” Arthur chuckled. “But, yes, I’m back down to the baseline.”

“Good,” Ford chirped as he stood. “Let’s find another bar.”

Arthur took the offered hand and rose to his feet, brushing mulch off of his trousers. “One more thing, though?”

“Hm?”

“...Do you spend a lot of time looking at my butt?”

Ford laughed and slapped him on the back. “Hard to miss it.”

Arthur laughed and shook his head. “You’re queer.”

“You’re just noticing?”

“No, no, I meant odd, but --”

“Space’ll do that.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah,” Ford teased, leading Arthur to the next bar. “Give it another month.”


	4. Babelfish Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur’s babelfish wears out and Ford sings a song.  
> (Note — all the “Beautelgusian” is google translate Welsh. Have fun.)

Arthur worried his thumbnail with his teeth. He was watching Ford fiddle with some game, sprawled out on a couch, cursing under his breath every time he died. Arthur listened intently as he heard the “game over” effect play again. 

“Damwain,” Ford said in a grating wheeze before restarting. 

“Okay, so I’m not crazy,” Arthur said, rubbing over his eyes. “You did just make that sound.”

“Hmm?” Ford glanced up from the screen. “What sound?”

“Like a fork in a garbage disposal,” he replied. “It’s horrifying. Stop it.”

“No idea what you’re talking am.”

Arthur recoiled. “Seriously, Ford —“

“Beth?”

“...Beth?” 

“Are chi feeling iawn?”

“Ford, stop it!” He said, pulling back a bit. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but it’s not even funny, so just —“

Ford stood and bopped him on the side of the head. Arthur felt something slimy flop out of his ear. 

“Gweneud — er, makes sense,” Ford said, catching the babelfish and dropping it in a nearby glass of water. “Poor thing is on its last legs.”

Arthur, revolted, wiped the juice out of his ear with his sleeve. “What do you mean?”

“Babelfish wear out from time to time,” Ford shrugged. He crinkled his nose. “Wow, I forgot how much I hate speaking English.”

“Better then whatever sounds you were making,” Arthur feebly defended, watching the sickly looking fish circle the glass. “What do we do about the fish, then? Is there some kind of, I don’t know, medicine?”

“Oh, Arthur, you haven’t  _ lived  _ until you’ve heard a good Betelgeusian battle hymn!” Ford chirped, pressing a button on the wall. “Zaphod, ble rydyn ni'n cadw'r pysgodcyfieithu sbâr?”

“i fyny dy asyn,” Zaphod’s voice replied from the speaker right above it. 

Arthur winced. “Sorry, but I’ll actually have to pass on the hymn. What did he say?”

“Nothing important,” Ford grumbled. He pressed the button again. “rydych chi'n ddoniol iawn. dywedwch wrthyf fel y gallaf stopio siarad Saesneg, yn iawn? mae'n rhoi pen tost i mi.”

“Rhowch ddeg munud i mi,” Zaphod responded.  “Mae angen cyfrinair arnoch.”

The line dropped and Ford turned back to him with a grin. “Give him ten.”

Arthur rubbed his temples and sat back in his chair. “Oh, I could NOT get used to that…”

“Betelgeusian is a beautiful language, Arthur,” Ford chirped, settling back down on the couch and picking up his game. “You’re just not used to it. Maybe we shouldn’t give you a new fish, make you learn a little bit of it. Immersion  _ is  _ the best teacher.”

“I couldn’t, right?” Arthur replied. “Two throats and everything?” 

“Guess not,” Ford hummed, sounding a little disappointed. “Could get some basics down. I learned English in a month or two.”

“Well, forgive me, but I think I’m good,” Arthur sighed, watching his fish feebly circle in the glass. “What’re you going to do with him?”

“Flush ‘im.”

“Ford!”

Ford shrugged, picking up his game again. “S’better then letting him rot in a bin. Had one rot in my head once. Smells awful.”

Arthur sighed and deigned to not respond. They sat in silence for a few moments. He looked away from the fish. Watching it slowly die was getting a little too upsetting. 

“Mae'r galon... mewn rhyw... mwy … a ddywedwyd…”

Arthur blinked. He turned towards Ford, who was muttering, eyes still intently locked on the game. He opened his mouth to tell him to stop, but something kept him from speaking. 

“Mae'r galon yn rhifydd ffortiwn dwy wyneb,” he said, a little louder.

Arthur realized that he was singing. 

“Mae'n tagu gonestrwydd ac yn ei glymu i swydd,” Ford half-hummed, suddenly glancing up at Arthur. A smile was creeping over his face. “pan fyddai sedd ar stôl dafarn yn well.”

“Ford,” Arthur groaned, sitting back and covering his face, “why are you like this?”

“Aroo,” Ford half-laughed, making a sound almost like a howl.

A very nice howl, actually. Despite how much Arthur hated the language, Ford had always had a very nice voice. 

“Ar, ar, aroo,” Ford continued, setting the game aside. “Dydw i ddim yn meiddio codi fy mhen na symud fy nghynau, I weld y dyffryn yn y wladwriaeth hon —“ he was now singing full out, rising to his feet, putting a foot up on the table in true showman’s style. “Rwy'n llenwi fy ngwydr ac yn gadael i'r noson gymryd ei siâp, Troelli cyllyll gydag amser a ffawd cariadon heb lwc —“

“ _ Stop, _ ” Arthur… laughed? He blinked, realizing that he’d laughed. He was amused by this. He was  _ enjoying  _ this. Oh, like Ford needed any encouragement!

“Rydych chi'n disgleirio o hyd,” Ford sang, stepping over and plopping down on the arm of the chair. “Rydych chi'n llusern ar fryn —“

Arthur reached up and playfully clapped a hand over his mouth. “Enough, enough, I get it, your language is —“

“A byddwn i'n llosgi i'r ddaear,” Ford managed, muffled by his hand. He pried it away and continued through a laugh. “I fynd â chi adr —“

“Ix?”

Both stopped dead and turned to where Zaphod was standing in the doorway with a fishbowl. 

“wow, roedd y Ddaear yn wir wedi newid chi, hmm?” He said, looking even smugger than usual, which was a feat in and of itself. 

“He was making fun of our mothertongue, Zaphod,” Ford chirped, his levity noticeably forced. “Peidiwch â dweud wrtho na fyddaf yn dangos lluniau Trillian ohonoch chi o'r ysgol.”

“jôcs arnoch chi, roeddwn bob amser yn hardd,” Zaphod smarmed, handing the fishbowl over. “Deg ar hugain o ddoleri neu rwy'n dweud wrthych eich bod yn canu cân gariad.”

Ford set the fishbowl in Arthur’s lap and dug through his pocket. Arthur yelped as the fish jumped into his ear, reflexively moving to wipe the water away. 

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Zaphod said as he pocketed a few bills Ford had just forked over. “Make sure you flush that. I’m not having my spaceship smell like rotten fish.”

They both watched as Zaphod left, stunned into silence. Well, Ford seemed to be, and Arthur found that it was his baseline more often than not, so he just kind of followed Ford despite not knowing why.

“... You’ve got a nice voice,” Arthur said after a while. “No idea what you were singing, though.”

“Betelgeusian battle hymn,” Ford replied.

“...Nice tune, at least. I think I’ll stick to English for now,” he said in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood. 

“Might be for the best,” Ford said after a moment. He stood and grabbed the glass with the old fish, which had now gone belly-up. “Got any kind of eulogy?”

“Erm… good-bye, fish,” he said, meekly. 

“Absolute poetry,” Ford half-laughed as he brushed out of the room. 

Arthur watched him go and gave his ear another swipe with his sleeve. He glanced down at the empty fishbowl in his lap, the water placid despite the fact that they were zipping through space at unimaginable speeds. He’d never thought about how the ship was so steady. 

He pursed his lips and set the fishbowl aside.

There were a lot of things he hadn’t thought about yet. 

A lot of things he owed some thinking to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song that he sings is “Lantern” by the ballroom theives. V v good ford/arthur song. Love that for them  
> Also uses some of my headcanons from Settling for Inbetween so :3 fun fact ford’s dads native language is just “norweigan” but he grew up learning “welsh” and just couldnt wrap his mind around “norweigan.” You get it. You probably dont. This is poorly explained. Its three am. Night!


	5. Swan Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur get in an argument.

“It’s a swan song, right? That’s the term?”

“What?”

“Something… people on Earth said it, I learned about it when I went to uni for a year, God, what did it mean?”

Arthur scratched his growing-in beard. “I don’t know, Ford. I’ve heard the phrase, I think. Don’t really know what it’s about.”

“It’s a final performance,” Ford decided, not listening to Arthur. “I think. Something to do with a final performance. And it’s supposed to tie back to the beginning somehow? I don’t know about that last part. It sounds right, at least.”

“Sure,” Arthur sighed, prodding the fire with a stick. Sparks jumped into the air, some landing on the fish cooking on a stone before fizzling out. “Why on Earth are you talking about that now?”

“Because we’re on Earth,” Ford said, grabbing onto the segway Arthur had unknowingly provided. “This is our swan song. We’re here now. We’ll probably always be. And it ties back, in a way.”

“Is this going to depress me further?” Arthur asked, idly prodding the fish on the stone. 

“Probably. So, all that you kept griping about was how you ‘wanted to go back to Earth’ and for ‘things to go back to the way they were,’ right?” Ford asked, knowing the answer. “And all I wanted to do was escape that ball of dirt and have some real fun. So, for me, it’s just the universe being a real asshole. For you, it’s a cruel irony. And for both of us, we aren’t going anywhere anymore. It’s the last thing that’s ever going to happen to us, wrapped around to where we sort of began this whole adventure. Swan song.”

Arthur stared at Ford, who had been watching the night sky through the little hole of their cave with a strange, half-focused, half-blank, and slightly amused face that he recognized very well. He hadn’t seen it since before the Vogon incident. He’d started to see it a lot about a week after they’d landed back on Earth. It was the face Ford made when he was desperately upset, isolated, lonely, terrified, realizing he was going to die on a planet he held no affection for, tired, scared, a whole list of emotions, none of them positive, and was covering it up with a thin veneer of acting strange so Arthur wouldn’t realize it. 

Ford turned to him after a long moment of silence and widened his smile. Arthur recalled how dogs bore their teeth when they were scared. He pursed his lips and turned back to the fish. “It did.”

“Did what?”

“Depress me further,” Arthur said, lifting the edge of the fish up to check if it was done. He pushed it onto a different rock that he’d cleaned off earlier and handed it over to Ford. 

“But it’s true, yeah?”

Arthur kept his eyes glued on the fish. “It is.”

“It’s the worst possible scenario,” Ford said through a mouthful of fish, sounding a little delighted. “It’s the exact worst thing that could have happened.”

“Mm-hm,” Arthur responded, pursing his lips and feeling his stomach turn. 

“It’s like someone went out of their way to find the worst place for us to end up, under the worst conditions. Like it was tailored to upset us.”

Arthur set down his fish and walked out into the tundra. 

His hands were shaking, his throat was closing up, and he felt like any second now he was going to vomit up the rabbit and roots they’d been eating for a month now. He plowed through the snow with no sense of direction but  _ not here, _ feeling the freezing air burn his nose and lungs, knowing that the change of temperature was going to give him a nasty nosebleed, because it always did, it had every morning that they’d headed out of a warm cave into a frozen tundra, why had they gone south, what were they thinking, this was awful, this was awful, this was  _ fucking awful  _ \-- 

“Arthur!”

“No!” He snapped, turning back to Ford. “Fuck off, I’m done with you, I can’t look at your stupid face for another bloody  _ second.  _ Go back in the cave. Go back in the cave. Go back --”

“Arthur, no, you’re going to get lost --”

“So what? So what,” he snarled. “I’ll get lost and die. It’s all pointless anyways, yeah? Just like you were saying. Worst possible scenario. Might as well get it over with, yeah? Might as well die out here instead of wandering around aimlessly until a bear gets me.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I was just --”

“Just what? Just tormenting me? Making sure I was as miserable as I could possibly be?”

“Arthur, what’s gotten into you?”

“You know!” He snapped, walking backwards. “You know what you’re doing! That how you get off? Making sure I’m miserable? I know it is. I know that look, Ford. You’re scared, you want to push it off onto me, because suddenly there’s nowhere to run, huh? Well I’m not gonna let you do it. I’m leaving, Ford. I’m leaving, and you’re gonna have to settle for ruining the lives of all the foxes and fish and… and whatever else you come across, because --”

Arthur tripped and fell into a snowbank. 

He felt the cold press in around him, catching him gently enough. He sat, frozen, for a moment, staring up at the sky, blank in shock, until Ford’s face appeared above him, creased with genuine concern.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, staying a tentative step away. 

Arthur stayed mute, staring up at the sky. 

“I’d ask if you were okay, but, I think I know the answer to that.”

Arthur felt the rage in his chest bubble up, hotter and hotter, growing into a full blown fury. 

“Come on, let’s get back to the cave, I --”

Arthur Dent started to cry. 

It was an ugly, deep cry, an unseemly and unmanly thing, but he did it, and he stared up at the sky and felt snot, then blood, drip down his face, and he pawed it away with his wrist like a child, knowing more would come and there was nothing else to do about it, and he cried, and he cried, and he cried. 

“Hey, come on, let’s get you back in --”

Arthur curled in on himself into a little ball and buried his face in his weathered pajama bottoms. 

After a moment, he heard Ford sigh. The snow shifted as the other man settled in, and after a second, a hand hit his back. 

“There was more to what I was saying, Arthur.”

Arthur said nothing, just trembled with cold. 

“We’re stuck in our personal worst-case-scenarios. It’s swan songed, and this is not where I ever wanted to be, and it’s where I will probably die, and I can’t say I’m happy about that,” Ford continued. 

Arthur felt something warm wrap around his shoulders. His shaking fingers reached up and felt the deerskin pelt that he’d not thrown on in his rush to get away from Ford.

“But what I was going to say is, for a worst case scenario, I’ve found that I’m not as unhappy as I’d have thought. I’m even happy,” he said, tying the strings around Arthur’s neck and maneuvering his hands into the deep pockets he’d sewn into the inside. “Which is pretty good for a personal hell. So, what I was getting to was that maybe it’s okay. Maybe this is okay,” in an act equally kind and gross, Ford rubbed away some of the blood and cleaned his hand off in the snow. “Maybe we’ll be okay.”

Arthur’s crying had slowly puttered out. He was still shaking with the cold, and he knew that if he didn’t want hypothermia he’d need to head back to the cave, but he still took a few moments to breathe. Ford stood and squatted in front of him with a tiny smile. One that Arthur also knew well. It was the one he used when he was paying mind to the fact that his normal one was a little less than human.

After a moment, he held out his hand and let Ford help him to his feet. “S’bloody freezing out here,” he muttered, pressing into the other man’s side. 

“There you go, stating the obvious,” Ford returned, keeping an arm around his shoulders. “You’re right back to normal, then.”

“Shut up. ...Thanks for my pelt, though.”

Ford just hummed. They made their way back towards the cave, and at the mouth he stopped and looked past Arthur’s head to something behind him. “Arthur, turn around.”

“Hm?”

Ford took him by the shoulders and turned him towards the mountains. Leaning in, he set his chin on his shoulder and pointed up. “Right there.”

The sky was lit up with green and blue. It rippled like a shook sheet, flooding the world with a soft glow. Arthur Dent, who knew there was a perfectly scientific explanation for this, suddenly understood why people had so strongly believed in magic. 

He tore his eyes away from the aurora to look at Ford. He was smiling, still. But the big one. His usual one. His genuine, just a little bit scary one. He liked it better then the tiny one anyways. 

Arthur turned back to the sky. Ford was right, this was a cruel irony. 

He pressed back a little into the other man, excusing it in his mind as wanting to syphon his warmth. 

But if this was the worst possible way for things to go, maybe he could count himself lucky. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back!! me. its me. exams have been kicking my ass so im slamming this one out so i don't go crazy while i lock myself in a room and study for eight fucking hours. Hope ur all still here lmao. Sorry i havent been here a bitch busy!!  
> Also for anyone interested I made a Ford playlist. Well it's kinda a Ford/Arthur playlist. u kno u kno. just some jams that remind me of him, or them. theyre all very dumb. my music taste is very bad, and very pretentious. hope yall are doing gr8 https://open.spotify.com/user/elijamnas/playlist/1TjcXlkJkSW7k3XRZKcM1q?si=bGyqM5nESSqGtEEQMPNHWw


	6. Stress Chef

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur bake some brownies.

Here are two things to know about Arthur Dent: one, he tended to stress bake. Two, he was generally very stressed. The natural conclusion of this is that Arthur Dent spent a lot more time baking then he’d have probably cared to admit. 

To avoid dying at 35 from an acute case of diabetes, he often shamefully slid a plate of cookies, or a pan of brownies, or any number of ill-fated attempts at various pastries onto the snack table in the break room at work when nobody was looking. This was his first line of defence against dying from his own treats, but when his coworkers didn’t clear the plate, he had to go to his second: Ford Prefect. 

Ford Prefect ate bread like a flock of starved ducks in a bakery and never gained a pound. Arthur would later learn that this was due to Betelgeusian systems that processed bread as humans processed a salad, a fact he would be ravenously jealous of every time they sat down to dinner on the Heart of Gold -- that is, if you could call what they were doing “sitting down for dinner.” If four adults pointedly ignoring each other while mawing down microwave meals is a nice family dinner in your book, it probably needs some heavy work with a red pen.

Arthur had all of these thoughts as he watched his dinner squirm around in its tray. Ford had explained that this was perfectly normal and said it was considered good fortune on some planets, but Arthur thought those planets were very stupid and mainly focused on picking at a tiny pocket of something that was probably vegetables. He sighed, finally setting the little plastic tray down and staring at the untouched oven. 

He was certainly stressed, and knowing this crew, nobody would object to a good, say, tray of brownies. Plate of cookies, even. If he really wanted to go crazy, a nice loaf of bread. Though he was almost sure that the ingredients on board would require some fudging, he was also almost sure that he could pull off  _ something  _ with the materials on hand. 

Arthur glanced around at the rest of the crew. Trillian would probably not think anything of it. Ford’s silence could be bought simply by promising him a few brownies. But Zaphod Beeblebrox? Good God. The mockery would never end if he knew Arthur did anything as disgustingly domestic as  _ baking. _

But by God, he was going to have a nervous breakdown if he didn’t put his energy somewhere besides the quickly-filling bottle in his chest. 

So Arthur Dent steeled his will, stiffened his lip, and made himself this solemn vow: tonight, when nobody could see him and make fun of him, he was going to bake something. It was all very brave and spectacular, and in fact, Arthur had made a bit of a face to commemorate the occasion. Ford saw this, assumed it was something to do with the clearly raw dinner he had shoved onto the other man with some lame excuse, and decided to ignore it. 

 

At three in the morning, Arthur Dent was hurriedly re-housing the massive stack of pans that had nearly brained him only a moment before. 

Batter covered the counter. He was nearly coated in flour. He’d briefly started a fire, forgetting that the oven measured in reverse Kelvins, a system devised by a maddened arsonist who also happened to have some strings to pull in the oven industry. 

So it was really not surprising when a sleepy Ford Prefect wandered into the disaster zone. 

“Morning, Arthur,” Ford yawned, rubbing over his eyes. “Did you choose to drop those pans on the floor above my bedroom because you have a massive death wish?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m sorry --” Arthur muttered, gathering the last of the pans and standing on the tips of his toes to tuck them away. “I just needed a pot, you know, I had to melt the chocolate down for the icing, because, it’s, you know, the…” he opened the oven again and was hit with a blast of hot air so hard that he recoiled. “Ovens… ovens preheated.”

Ford leaned against the fridge, arms crossed, looking more amused then anything. “Arthur, where are your eyebrows?”

Arthur gently reached up and touched along the bald ridge over his eye. “Erm…”

Ford traced a finger over the counter and popped it in his mouth. His eyebrows (still intact) furrowed, then jumped a bit. His eyes brightened as he looked up at Arthur. “Brownies?”

“Please don’t tell Zaphod,” Arthur sighed, rubbing over his eyes. “I just, I don’t know, I needed to … I’ve been so stressed, with the Earth being destroyed, I thought that maybe --”

“The hell would I tell Zaphod for?” Ford said, mopping up more batter and scooping it into his mouth with all the grace of a toddler. “He’s not getting any of these, man, I have  _ missed  _ them.”

Arthur watched as Ford practically cleaned the counter and sighed in relief. If it wasn’t good nature, which he knew Ford had in him somewhere, his sweet tooth had stepped up to save the day once again. One of his sweet teeth, at least. Ford had showed him the special molars and how they could retract once. Now he was nauseous thinking about it.

“You need help or something?”

Arthur blinked, pulled from his thoughts. Ford was turning over a bottle of milk with a careful eye. “Erm --”

“Just because, you know, I don’t think you know what half the stuff in the fridge is, is all. Yeah? I mean, lucky that Zaphod stopped off in our neighborhood, most of this stuff is at least Earth-adjacent…”

“Our neighborhood?”

“Within a few hundred-thousand lightyears of Earth,” Ford said simply, taking a whiff of the milk and crinkling his nose. “Grab some fresher stuff out, this is nasty.”

Arthur did, with some effort as to identifying which of the liquids in the fridge were milk. “Is that why it...?”

“Yeah, Andromedans are absolute shit with expiration dates,” Ford sighed, throwing the bottle away. “Where is the little guy now?”

Arthur pointed to the top of the fridge. A ball of white gunk, dusted with brown powder, gurgled at him furiously. 

“Right,” Ford said, taking the pan from Arthur. “You didn’t need to lie about needing it for chocolatte, you know.”

“It was, I was going to use it again, just, you know…” Arthur glanced up at the little monster as Ford calmly dragged over a step stool. He stepped up, and with an unsettling _splart,_ the milk-creature was gone. 

Ford turned to Arthur with the same smile a dog gives its owner after dropping roadkill on the porch. 

“... Later,” he finished wearily, brushing some goo off of his shoulder. 

 

“You’re saying this is the closest thing we have to vanilla?”

“See, now, I don’t understand what vanilla is doing in brownies, anyways.”

“It balances the flavor,” Arthur defended, turning the bottle over again. The bottle read to him as something called “Snarglefraqtz,” which he couldn’t pronounce, let alone cook with. 

“Fussy, fussy,” Ford dismissed. He was lazily stirring the melted down chocolate, watching as Arthur measured and stirred with care. “It won’t kill you, it tastes kinda sweet, kinda plain. That’s vanilla, right?”

Arthur unscrewed the lid and smelled it. It was like a mix between almond and vanilla. He pursed his lips and decided he could live with it, dumping it in and giving it a cautious stir. No puff of smoke, no cloud that formed into a skull and crossbones… well, that would have to do. He turned to Ford. “Finished. Is there some kind of pan, or…?”

Ford pointed to the drawer above him. Arthur reached up and fished around blindly for a moment before his fingers hit cool ceramic. He pulled down the only baking pan in the cabinet and immediately groaned.

“What?”

“It’s… Ford, it’s a… look at it!”

“It’s a dick?”

“Yeah!”

Ford looked at the pan, then back to Arthur. “What do you want me to do about it?”

Arthur sighed, looking from the pan, to Ford, to the pan, to Ford, to the inside of his eyelids as he closed them and fought off his burgeoning headache. “Nothing, just… your cousin drives me absolutely insane.”

“Semi-cousin,” Ford corrected, pulling the spoon from the pot and watching the chocolate drizzle back in. “Yeah, he has that effect on people.”

With an air of defeat, Arthur filled the pan and tucked it into the oven. “There,” he sighed, setting his mixing spoon in the sink. It was almost immediately appropriated by Ford, which got a chuckle out of Arthur, against all odds. 

“You’re an absolute toddler sometimes,” Arthur muttered through a smile, setting a timer for the brownies on his watch. 

“What, do I just let it go to waste?” Ford defended, grinning back. “Here,” he said, holding the spoon out. “Try it.”

Arthur chuckled and waved it away. “Stop it, no, you’re not supposed to --”

“What? How do you know if the foods good if you don’t taste it?”

“You follow the recipe!”

“Recipe, right, yeah.” Ford gently bapped him on the cheek with the spoon, leaving a circle of chocolatte slime. “I’m sure that recipe’s always called for eggs from a fifteen-headed googleshmanx.”

“Ford!” Arthur griped, smudging the chocolatte away with the back of his hand. “You’re annoying, you know that? And I’m still pretty sure you’re making part that up,” he lectured, turning towards the sitting area. “Just keep stirring the frosting until it’s thick.”

“You’re licking the batter off of your hand.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m scratching my nose,” Arthur replied. 

He startled as a hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around.

“Hey!”

“You are!”

“Just shut up, you --!”

Arthur stopped. Ford was grinning at him like the cheshire cat -- a look that he had only really started to notice after the whole Earth being destroyed incident. And, despite what his baser instincts should have told him, he instead found it infectious.

“Whatever,” Arthur laughed, going for a rag to wipe it off. “At least I’m not eating my weight in it.”

“At least I’m not wasting it,” Ford teased back, grabbing his hand and licking it like a dog.

Arthur stifled a cry of disgust. “Ford!”

“What, you needed if off of your hand, yeah?” he laughed. “I wanted to eat it, you wanted it off. I think it worked out well, all things considered.”

“You’re the  _ worst,”  _ he grumbled, washing his hands furiously. He dried them and gave Ford a half-hearted little punch on the shoulder. Ford grabbed his fist, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it.

“There,” he said, still laughing. “Kissed it all better.”

Arthur collected his stomach from his kneecaps. What was that? What was that, exactly? Ford had dropped his hand the moment after, turning back to the pot like it was nothing, glancing at him with that cheshire smile every couple of seconds.

“Uhm,” Arthur managed after a  _ very long  _ moment, “The, uhm… that’s not how that works, I think, it has to be some kind of scrape…”

There was a long moment of silence punctuated by the bubbling of the chocolatte. 

“Was that a joke?” Ford asked after a relative eternity.

“...Yeah, just... “ Arthur dropped to a mumble. “I don’t know, it wasn’t very funny.”

“You’ll get it someday,” Ford reassured with a pat on the back. 

“Thanks,” Arthur managed. 

 

The brownies were out, and cooled, and the frosting was spread evenly over all of it. Arthur, after much deliberation, deigned splitting it down the middle as the most tasteful way to slice into something in the shape of a penis, and Ford was luxuriously tearing into his half as Arthur finished the dishes.

“Think the rest of them will smell something and get curious?” he asked as Arthur dried the last pan.

“Maybe we can open a window?” Arthur suggested as he settled it back into its place on the shelf. 

Ford stared at him for a long moment.

“What?”

“We’re in space,” Ford said, bordering on concern.

“...Oh, right.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ford decided, reaching up and ruffling Arthur’s hair. “Night, Earthman. Let’s do this again, yeah? You make a damn good brownie.”

“Right, yeah, night,” Arthur managed through a meek laugh. 

He watched as Ford picked his way back down the stairs, hearing the door chirp about how delighted it was to serve as he did. After a moment, he turned to his half of the pan, untouched. 

He took a pinch of it and popped it into his mouth, eyes drifting back to the stairwell. 

As he’d expected. Very similar to how he remembered them, but, inevitably, just a little bit different.

He couldn’t pin down if he liked it or not.

He took another pinch and listened to the hum of the Heart of Gold, shooting through space at unimaginable, nearly incomprehensible speeds. He chewed carefully, mulling over every little change in flavor and texture, then swallowed. 

Eyes flicking back to the stairway, he smiled. 

He liked it, against all odds. At least for now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I've been absolutely dead lately (well, always) and completely dry for ideas. Then I forgot to take my meds and ended up stress baking for six hours. Thus, this little drabble. hope you enjoy, and again, I'd love to hear requests because I am FRESH out  
> Also bc i want people to talk about this series with ... my twitter is @tanzersilvrview and ill love you forever... stay wild


	7. Life's a Beach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur remember a little song from Earth.

“Stop touching the dials, monkey man,” Zaphod snapped, his third hand slapping Arthur’s away from the dial. 

“It’s the radio,” Arthur snapped back, nursing his ego. “I don’t think I can mess up much with the radio.”

“‘Don’t think I can mess up much with the radio,’” Zaphod mocked, taking his voice a few octaves up and talking like his tongue had suddenly swollen up. “Trust me, you can. Besides, I like this song. Go bother Ford.”

“Bloody idiot,” Arthur muttered under his breath. He walked to the couch and sat down with a sigh. From the radio, what sounded like a fork being unceremoniously scraped against a plate blasted over the speakers. 

If only looks really could kill, Zaphod would be slumped over in his chair.

“Can you at least turn it down?”

Zaphod reached over and turned the music up.

Arthur groaned and covered his ears, turning and storming downstairs towards their bedrooms. He could still faintly hear Zaphod’s music playing upstairs as he passed Ford’s room. 

“I hate your cousin,” he snapped, stopping in the doorway. 

“Semicousin,” Ford corrected through a mouthful of chips. He flipped another page in his magazine. “What’d he do this time?”

“He’s playing this damn music,” Arthur grumbled.

“S’his ship.”

“Yeah, but I have ears.”

Ford glanced at him, confusion crossing his face. “So does he? Four of them, actually.”

“No, but I mean… nevermind,” Arthur sighed.

“Arthur, we’re in the middle of space, you’ve got to understand. It’s not like he’s going to put on the Beach Boys or something.”

“Yeah, but --” Arthur stopped complaining for a moment, his attention suddenly piqued. “You remember the Beach Boys?”

“Remember them? Arthur, you introduced me to them.” He folded his magazine shut and grabbed his chips instead. “If I’m being honest, they were my favorite Earth band. Had all of their albums, actually,” Ford admitted, stretching out luxuriously on his bed. “Favorite was Pet Sounds. Used to get very high, listen to that one, then eat a lot of very bad takeout pizza.” He sighed, eyes slipping shut as he reminisced. “Don’t miss Earth, do wish I’d grabbed a few records on the way out.”

“Well… I half agree with you,” Arthur muttered from the doorway. “Which is a lot more than usual.”

Ford chuckled. “That sounds about right, yeah. What’re you doing in the doorway?”

“Erm.” Arthur looked down at himself, as if asking the same question. “Standing, why?”

“Nah, come here,” Ford said, waving him over. “You want some chips?”

“Chips?” Arthur asked, staring down into the bag as he settled onto the edge of the bed.

“Oh, we call them that out here.”

Arthur took one and cautiously popped it into his mouth. “Oh. It’s just a crisp.”

“Yeah,” Ford said, taking a handful and stuffing it into his mouth. “You gotta stop thinking that I’m trying to poison you, Arthur.”

“You did! The very first week on this ship!”

“That was  _ food poisoning, _ ” Ford groaned, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, you put  _ poison  _ in the  _ food _ !”

“Why would I take you off of Earth just to poison you?”

“... Well …”

“S’what I thought,” Ford said, a little smug, popping another chip into his mouth and holding out the bag.

Arthur took one and shot him a little glare, but it didn’t last long until it softened into a tiny chuckle as he shook his head and popped the chip in his mouth. “Actually, I think they called them chips in America as well.”

“Really?” Ford asked, licking the salt off of his fingers. “Explains why you were worried about poisoning.”

“What? Why?”

“You ever had Taco Bell?”

“No. What?”

“American chain. Remember how you were with your first few weeks on space food?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Double it.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah,” he said, talking as he crunched up another chip. “It was insanity. On Zarquon, I was cleaned out. Dehydrated, too. Could have taken that -- what was that medical exam you had to get that one time? Colon scope? Colonscopie? Colonosc --”

“ _ Stop, _ ” Arthur begged, gagging.

Ford shrugged and offered him another chip.

“Believe it or not, I’m good,” Arthur muttered.

“Suit yourself,” he said, popping it into his own mouth instead.

They fell into a quiet lul, the only sound being Ford crunching away on his chips. Arthur stayed perched on the edge of the bed, trying to not infringe too much on the other man’s space. He blinked as he heard Ford start to hum.

“Would-n’t it be nice if we were older,” the Betelgeusian muttered, barely audible. “Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long…” 

He trailed off. After a moment, Arthur turned to him, barely able to see the other man’s face from the way he had to twist over his own shoulder. “Why’d you stop?”

“Hmm?” Ford hummed, but not the pleasing musical kind. He’d cropped one eye open to look at him. 

“Uhm. Nevermind,” He mumbled, turning away. “S’fine.”

There was another moment of silence.

“And wouldn’t it be nice to live together,” he sang again, barely more than a hum. “In the kind of world where we be-long…”

“You know it’s gonna make it so much bett-er,” Arthur hummed, “When we can say goodnight and stay…” he twisted over his shoulder again and saw Ford watching him. He shut his mouth and turned away.

“Didn’t know you sang, Arthur.”

“Not often,” Arthur defended.

“Could have fooled me,” Ford said. Arthur felt the bed shift as the other man sat himself up. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up, in the morning when the day is new…”

 Arthur startled as he was nudged. 

“Huh?” he asked, intelligently.

“Go on,” Ford encouraged, leaned back against the headrest. “I know you know the words.”

“Ford, I don’t --”

“Come  _ on, _ ” he whined, leaning forward. He rested his head on his pulled-up knees and pouted, just a bit. “Have a little _ fun _ , Arthur.”

Arthur stared at him for a moment, then turned away. “And… And after having spent the day together --”

“Hold each other close the whole night through,” Ford finished, eyes still on Arthur.

“Happy times together we’ve been spending,” Arthur picked up, shoulders untensing as he slowly shifted towards Ford.

“I wish that every kiss was never ending,” they sang, for the first time in unison. 

They stopped after that, for a moment. Arthur was now fully on the bed. In fact, he was rolled just a bit on his side so as to face Ford. Ford had unscrunched a bit, letting the leg by Arthur lie down. The two of them were facing each other. They weren’t staring into each other’s eyes, of course, but they had happened to catch them. That’s why they’d stopped singing. Ford tried to find the next line of the song, but for some reason, it was lost in the fact that Arthur was sitting on his bed, singing with him until just a second ago, leaning towards him ever so slightly with a tiny smile that suggested that maybe, just maybe, he was getting comfortable here, and maybe, just maybe -- 

“Well,” chirped Arthur as he turned to face the opposite wall, “I really do miss that album.”

“Uhm.” Ford kept looking at him. “Yeah.”

“I miss bad takeout pizza as well,” Arthur continued, now worrying a thread on his pants. “And you know another album I’d have liked to take? I had a Beatles greatest hits record. Bought it in college. Should’ve brought that,” he said, prattling on.

Ford sighed. Arthur was doing that human thing where they talked about anything but the issue in front of them. 

“You know, I think I’m going to try to convince Zaphod to turn that music off again,” Arthur babbled, standing abruptly. “Nice to, uhm. Actually, I’m headed out, do you need anything?”

“No,” Ford answered, glumly propping his chin on his refolded knees. 

“Great, great. See you at dinner.” he started out the door, but after a moment, the footsteps stopped, and his head reappeared in the doorframe. He stared at Ford, jaw dropping slightly. If he’d had any words, he’d misplaced them.

“Yeah?” Ford asked, monotone.

“Erm… I mean, just so you know. You have a really nice voice, Ford.” 

Ford looked at him blankly for a moment, then smiled, just a bit. “You’re not half-bad either.”

“Did chorus in prep school.”

“Really? It shows.”

“You think so?”

“Shows that you haven’t sang since prep school,” Ford shot, smile getting just a bit bigger.

Arthur’s nose twitched. “Asshole,” he muttered, making his way back towards the main deck. 

Ford stretched out on his bed again, staring up at the ceiling. 

“...Wouldn’t it be nice,” he sighed, pressing his fists into his eyes so he saw those little swirls and spots of color.

Yeah. Sweet Zarquon, yeah, it would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this inspired by the "wouldnt it be nice" posts floating around tumblr. yes. of course it is. anyways thans for coming to my ted talk.


	8. The Restaurant at the End of Like, Smith Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford and Arthur draw some pictures.

On Earth, but more specifically in a small italian bistro, Ford and Arthur were having a nice enough dinner and sharing a nice enough bottle of wine. The occasion was that they liked to spend time with each other, and also to eat large quantities of pasta, and especially to drink not-too-expensive wine. They were having a very good time, save for a hiccup near the beginning. 

 

“And can I have some crayons?”

The waiter had given him a strange look. “Sir?”

“Some crayons,” Ford had repeated. 

“Ford,” Arthur muttered, “I think those are for the children.”

“It doesn’t seem like there's a shortage,” Ford said, indicating where the crayons were sitting in dirty little dixie cups. “I’ll give them to the first kid that asks, but until then, could you grab them for me?”

The waiter, who had no reason to object, had stepped away and returned a moment later with the crayons. “Anything else?”

“Bottle of house red,” Arthur said, wanting the interaction to be over. 

“Very good,” the waiter had replied, and left them to decide on what to eat. 

 

As in many nice enough italian restaurants, the table was covered in a sheet of brown paper. Why anyone would do this was beyond Arthur, and he’d noted this between rounds of tic tac toe. Ford hadn’t had an answer, and Arthur then had to talk him out of asking the waiter about it. 

And, though it was a little embarrassing, he was grateful for the crayons. Little rounds of hangman made the wait a little more bearable. 

Arthur sipped his wine and enjoyed the hum of conversation around him. Say what he would about Ford, but the man was comfortable with a silence. And when Arthur pulled it together enough, he could be too. 

His eyes fell on a large patch of purple that Ford was hunched intently over. He craned his neck to see it better and was met with the other man shifting to cover it. 

“Ford, what are you doing?” He asked, leaning another way only to be blocked again. 

“Drawing.”

“Clearly.” Arthur waited a beat for Ford to pick up on his cue, then chastised himself for it. “What are you drawing that I can’t see?”

“A picture,” Ford said, plainly.

“Well I know that. A picture of what?”

“Arthur, if I wanted you to know, I’d have let you see it.”

Arthur sighed. “There are children here, Ford.”

“Nothing like that,” he mumbled, intent on his task. “Now hush, I have to focus.”

“Well, this is making for nice conversation,” he remarked sourly.

Ford glanced up and cocked an eyebrow. “You can’t entertain yourself for five minutes?”

“I came out here to talk to you, not watch you draw!”

Ford squinted at him for a moment, then looked back to his drawing. “Five minutes.”

Arthur huffed, a little frustrated at this, but obviously not going to do anything substantial about it. He took another sip of his wine and people watched for a moment. Unfortunately, people in a bistro are not wont to do many things besides chat and eat, so that didn’t hold his attention for long. Idly, he picked up a blue crayon and began to doodle nervously. 

Arthur had never been very good at art, or so he’d been told by every art teacher he’d ever had. Responses varied from ‘Maybe stick to writing, dear,’ to ‘Please just drop this class.’ But, despite his many critics, he still doodled in the margins of papers, or, in this case, on the paper tablecloth of a small italian bistro. 

He drew some flowers. A wine glass. A few stars. His eyes flickered nervously from place to place, trying to find something else to draw that was within his realm of ability. This list was short, and ended with ‘napkin-holder.’

He glanced up at Ford, who continued to doodle away. 

He looked back down at the table and, after a moment, began to sketch. 

People had been his biggest issue. He’d never known where exactly it was that everything went. And especially with faces, as besides a few big easy bits, most of it was finicky and difficult. Proportions, as well, were a challenge. But, hell. It’s not like it was being hung up anywhere.

And besides, Ford was a good subject for study, in that he was slightly odd looking anyways. His smile was a bit too big, Arthur found, and his eyes a little too unfocused. It would lend itself to his particular artistic skill set, which was to say that everyone he drew turned out looking a bit odd.

Now that he was drawing him, carefully attempting to sculpt the jawline, he noted in passing that it was a look that worked for him. Ford was handsome, in a very odd way. Which was a perfectly normal thing to think about another man, if he could just say. In fact, he was sure men thought each other were attractive all the time. He’d had a friend in uni who’d always noted how well he cleaned up, and treated him to nice dinners, and took him to a few nice bars he’d never heard of before. Yes, he soothed himself, it was perfectly normal to note that a fellow man was attractive. 

He thought it again as he sketched out the eyes. Unfocused worked for Ford, especially because he could then rattle back everything you’d just said to him, which gave him an element of surprise that he so liked to have. Or at least, he always seemed to be able to do that for Arthur. Many times they’d been out with a few other friends, or he’d visited him at work, and when someone else asked about his glassy-eyed stare, he’d simply respond, “sorry, wasn’t listening, once again?”

He had the thought once more as he fiddled out the lips. Arthur gave him a big smile, one that nearly reached the ear, which he just knew wasn’t proportionally correct. He found himself baring his teeth as he went, like that would help him draw it. He realized, horrified, that this meant he’d have to draw in teeth. He gave him one sharp one, because he’d always noticed that one of Ford’s canines just seemed a bit more pronounced. Which was normal, again. It was normal to look at another man’s mouth long enough to note just about anything about his teeth. Or that his lips seemed very soft, because he maintained them in the winter, unlike other men. Didn’t let them chap, didn’t bite big holes in them. Just used chapstick, which was apparently too emasculating for some people. This was all perfectly -- 

“Who had the chicken parmesan?”

“Me,” Ford chirped, looking up from his work excitedly. 

“Then this must be yours,” the waiter noted, setting a bowl of creamy pasta down right where Arthur had been working so diligently a moment before. 

“Y… Yes, thank you,” Arthur managed, pulled from his line of thought. 

“My pleasure,” the waiter lied, and left them to their meal. 

“Thank God,” Ford managed, mouth already full. “I was starving.”

“Uhm, yes,” Arthur said, doing a very good job having a human conversation. 

“There you go,” Ford said, pointing with his fork at the sketch beside him. “Violla.”

“Voila, Ford,” Arthur corrected, shifting so he could see what Ford had drawn. 

Sitting beside the other man at the table was a fairly impressive rendering of Arthur Dent. He was glancing down slightly, seemed to be mid-laugh, his tiny smile pinching his eyes just a bit. Besides being rendered entirely in purple, by all means, this picture was hard to distinguish from the slack-jawed man staring at it.

“Good, yeah?” Ford asked, twirling a pound of pasta onto his fork. “Studied art for a little bit on… in university,” he said. “Don’t ask me to draw the rest of the body, was absolute shit at that.”

The slip up was by no means subtle, but Arthur did not catch it as he was too busy being completely floored. “Ford, I had no idea…”

Ford happily absorbed the praise. “Thought you might like it. What can I say, you’re a good model.”

Arthur felt his heart catch. He reminded himself that it was perfectly normal for men to compliment their male friends on their looks, and took a deep breath to stop himself from vomiting on the table. “Thank you.”

“By that I mean,” Ford said, remembering that it wasn’t normal, or at least not socially accepted, for men to compliment their male friends on their looks here on Earth, “You’ve got a very easy face. Not a lot going on. No warts or anything, just kind of a very plain face.”

Arthur felt his heart sink and didn’t quite know why. “Well… erm, thanks, I think.”

Ford just hummed, stuffing his face with pasta. Two slips in the space of a minute. If it hadn’t been for the first, he’d have been totally fine letting the other land. But, no matter how kind Arthur was, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t ship him off for dissection if he uncovered the little fact of his origins. Better keep eating pasta and not talk while he got it together.

They ate in silence for a moment, but after a while, Arthur got frightened of it in the way that human beings are wont to do. “I feel kind of silly now. My drawing’s not half as good.”

“Lemme see,” Ford requested through a mouthful.

“Erm. I really want you to lower your expectations,” Arthur mumbled, pinning his plate down like the picture would jump out from under it. “I’m not very good at art, especially not with crayons, and --”

Ford pushed his plate aside and looked at the picture.

“Hey!”

He snickered. 

“Alright, alright,” Arthur grumbled, cheeks heating up. “Shut up. I didn’t realize I was sitting across from Picasso, okay?”

“Well, really, I’d say I’m the one eating dinner with him,” Ford laughed, attempting to move the plate again. “Come on, let me see it!”

“No!”

“Arthur --”

“No, no, stop it, I wasn’t really trying --”

“Come on, Arthur, I just think it’s cute!”

Arthur pursed his lips and tried to look threatening. “You’re an asshole.”

“Aw, come on, tell me something I don’t know,” Ford laughed, settling back into his chair. “I really like how my eyes are nearly touching.”

“Maybe that’s just how they look,” Arthur grumbled. “Maybe you just look odd and nobody’s told you.”

“No, no. I’m very handsome,” Ford assured him. “Even with my apparently broken nose.”

 

Dinner continued as usual. Eventually, the topic of the drawings was moved on from. The rest of the night was much more pleasant, as at one point, Ford explained some very complicated astrological processes that Arthur couldn’t help but hang on the words of. They finished, paid, and as they stood to leave for the night, Arthur took care to rip out the picture and throw it in the garbage. 

“Come on, Arthur,” Ford said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Maybe some lessons from me, yeah?”

“Doubt it,” Arthur had grumbled, pocketing the folded-up picture of himself that he’d carefully parred from the paper with his keys. Well, it was nice! What was he supposed to do, let a good portrait go to waste?

They parted ways warmly for the evening and went about their lives. 

 

A few weeks later, Arthur was hanging around his friend’s apartment, rooting through drawers for a battery so he could silence the incessant beeping fire alarm behind him. As he dug through Ford’s bedside table, he found a scrap of paper, carefully uncrumpled, covered in blue wax. 

Arthur stared at the paper for a long, long moment. 

“Find anything?” Ford shouted from the kitchen. 

Arthur blinked out of his haze and shoved the paper back in the drawer, slamming it shut.

“Nothing,” he shouted back, and left to search another room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone heard that hgtg is gettig a hulu series right. so were all scared right. okay good


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